An effective approach to cooling high power electronic components is to circulate liquid coolant through channels formed in the bulk regions of the semiconductor devices or the heatsinks to which the devices are joined. See, for example, the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,894,709; 5,998,240; 6,983,792; 7,215,547; 7,227,257; and 7,294,926; and the U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0022334. The cooling may be achieved by a single-phase mode in which the liquid coolant remains in the liquid phase, or a two-phase mode in which some or all of the coolant vaporizes as it passes through the coolant channels. Variables such as power density, coolant thermal properties, coolant flow rate, and channel geometry determine whether the cooling process operates in the single-phase mode or the two-phase mode. For purposes of discussion, it will be assumed hereinafter that the thermal properties and flow rate of the coolant are constant.
Various attempts have been made to design the geometry of the coolant channels in order to optimize considerations such as cooling performance, flow restriction and cost of manufacture. But in general, designs developed to optimize one consideration tend to be deficient in respect to one or more other considerations. For example, many designs intended to maximize channel surface area for optimal cooling performance will also undesirably restrict coolant flow and/or be expensive to manufacture. Or cooling channel designs calculated to optimize cooling performance for single-phase cooling processes tend to be sub-optimal when used with two-phase cooling processes, and vice-versa. Accordingly, what is needed is an improved cooling channel design that provides enhanced cooling performance with both single-phase and two-phase cooling processes, without unduly restricting coolant flow or significantly increasing manufacturing cost.